


in great content

by paintedviolet



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Hands, If that's your thing - Freeform, One Shot, Short One Shot, and falling in love, and so is the doctor, graham and ryan are mentioned, it's just about hands, lots of metaphors, soft, these two are so soft it's beyond ridiculous, yaz is just happy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-16
Updated: 2019-09-16
Packaged: 2020-10-20 03:06:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20668280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paintedviolet/pseuds/paintedviolet
Summary: 'When she looks to her left, she sees the Doctor smiling back at her, as if let in on the secret joy. And, maybe she is. Maybe she does know what Yaz is thinking. She would not be surprised. There’s a wavelength they’ve risen to in recent months, conversation through simple glances and gravitation rendering distance unnecessary. They seem a world apart to the world, and closer for it. It gives her a great contentment, wrapped up in the feeling of togetherness.'the doctor and yaz hold hands.thanks to the dw creators gc for shouting 'HANDS' over and over again and giving me something to do during my boring day at work





	in great content

**Author's Note:**

> hands ! hands ! hands !
> 
> if you, like me, prefer musical accompaniment when reading, then i'd suggest listening to this absolute banger by haulm called ['they came along'](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnDmw7n-VUk)

When the lights of the night come to greet them through the car windows, they do so in quick kisses. Regular like the thuds of train tracks; in her mind, she hears the drum of it. Pulling her to a great contentment she doesn't often allow herself to feel – not unless alone, truly alone, with God and her only.

Though her definition of alone is changing now.

It's that gentle sort of contentment, wrapping itself around her like a scarf on an ice-chill day. It does not ask for attention, but whispers in the background, warm air and warm smiles held aloft in complacency. It does not ask for quiet, either. They can hear the boys in front, chatting near-mindlessly about a game they'd watched earlier that day. But it asks for a lull, a rare moment of reprieve, a dip in time where stress dissipates like dew in the morning sun.

Yaz watches the streams of light and feels content.

Her body is weary. The strain of a day's work, she supposes, though work would be an overestimation. The vigilance required in her role takes its toll when the danger never comes alive; when her mind catches on thought patterns of duty to the community, and a desperation for the community to do something. To at least give her a job worth clutching onto. Those are the moments she can let fall away when she steps inside the wooden blue doors. Those are the moments that lift off her like steam when she can set her sights on time with her friends, time with the Doctor.

She is free to be, simply.

The TARDIS is anchored, marooned, on planet Earth, after a technical bug threatened her ability to fly. It'll take a week, the Doctor says, to do the necessary repairs and make her travel-safe again. She’ll stay in the meantime, nip in and out of their lives like any good friend. Whenever they find her, she is clothed not in her favourite eccentricism but in her odd job clothes. Oil smears and electricity burns stain her yellowed apron, a dirty white tank top underneath; and once-khaki cargo trousers, folded over at the ankles, are slashed and ripped in small places: at the front of her thighs, on her left knee. Tools and parts are lifted by bare arms, muscles tensing under their weight. The three of them stop for a chat when they can, but the Doctor tends to be busy with her repairs. They are all busy, here on planet Earth. Yaz busies herself in order not to think about it too much, about the thought of her.

But this is not work, not for any of them. Yaz’s shift has ended, Ryan is home from the warehouse, and the Doctor has thrown her tools behind her to indulge in an evening together, to embark on a cinema trip. They ruled out horror, but Yaz agreed blindly. She does not particularly care. This is a reunion of sorts, a snap back together after the uncommon time apart, and none of them could care less.

It’s just good to be together. Talking about football like it matters. Yaz smiles. It does matter, it always does.

When she looks to her left, she sees the Doctor smiling back at her, as if let in on the secret joy. And, maybe she is. Maybe she does know what Yaz is thinking. She would not be surprised. There’s a wavelength they’ve risen to in recent months, conversation through simple glances and gravitation rendering distance unnecessary. They seem a world apart to the world, and closer for it. It gives her a great contentment, wrapped up in the feeling of togetherness.

The Doctor’s hair has been flattened, her work clothes swapped for her everyday outfit. To the curious onlooker – and all of them  _ are  _ curious – she is merely an unusual entity, floating into this world in perfect eccentricity. But there’s a smudge of her cheekbone, still, of an oil-like substance, glistening green when the next light kisses her skin, and it anchors her to Yaz. The greetings they’ve shared, the moments alone in the TARDIS as the Doctor toils, and she watches.

‘You’ve got a little something,’ she murmurs, hesitant to break the atmosphere of calm settled around them like humidity. She points to her own cheekbone. The Doctor blinks at her, so she stays in impatience, and reaches across the car to do it herself. Her thumb presses down and swipes the soft skin, the grease lifting off at the contact. Her exhale comes slowly.

It’s just a smudge, an inconsequential thing, but it doesn’t feel it. Yaz wipes the grease down the arm of her leather jacket, and lets her hand loll onto the leather middle seat.

The Doctor has been gazing at her the entire time. ‘Thanks, Yaz,’ she says, barely a breath, and she breaks into an enormous smile.

Eyes sparkling. Every tenderness. Yaz wants to cradle it.

But the Doctor turns away, and launches into a new conversation. ‘Guys, did I ever tell you about the time I played  _ sokka  _ against the Greatest High Emperor of Pulnitsul?’ And so she commands the conversation, all eyes drawn to her, towards the depths of the ridiculous the Doctor’s stories can so often veer towards.

Every muscle in her face works with one another for maximum expression. Eyes wide and eyebrows arched. Her left hand darts forward in her retelling, agile as the fox and as playful, too. The other flutters, to fall, here, onto the middle leather seat.

And search. Yaz’s breath hitches. And entwine.

It’s extraordinary, the feeling of having someone’s hand in your own. This simple act of communication, being found in a mutual purpose.

She’s not one to be overly sentimental – they save that for Dad – but when it comes to touch, she feels different. It’s one thing to talk to someone, to see them; it’s another thing to feel them. Blood pumping through veins and natural warmth; the different textures of skin’s caress and the bump of knuckles. Pliable skin and smooth nails, the bend of fingers and the perfect slotting. Muscles complement each other to fit; to entwine, embrace.

All of life’s little communications can be said so simply in hands.

When it comes to the Doctor, especially, she views it differently. However long their time together can be quantified, she’s come to realise in all those moments that physical affection is not the Doctor’s forte. Not really. She’s too busy. She’s off saving worlds, poking things that warrant an investigation and sticking her head in other people’s business. She’s never one to sit still, even when the moment requires the act. She’s movement, expressed.

In times she’s felt calm, felt a great contentment, it has come with the knowledge that movement will always be happening. If she is movement expressed then Yaz is the receiver. She will feel from it. She is  _ meant  _ to feel from it, if not of it. The Doctor has her nature, and it is unchangeable, just as Yaz wants to hold her hand in the moments too busy for it.

But not this one. Not this one. The Doctor’s left hand still flaps about as the story deepens, but Yaz cannot pay attention to it anymore. Illuminated and darkened, it becomes periphery. Her gaze is locked onto their linked hands. Illuminated and darkened. Exposed and hidden. Illuminated and darkened. Exposed and hidden.

Like plucking petals off a flower. When does it stop? Which do they choose?

The Doctor shifts, and without thought deepens their interlinking. Her thumb starts to rub Yaz’s knuckle, soft strokes hinting at the great power amassed in her fingertips. Thousands of years old, untold stories, and still she chooses the most powerful show of all.

Yaz can’t look away.

Illuminated, then darkened. Illuminate, please, Yaz thinks. Please cover me in it.

Destination reached, they enter the cinema car park to blinding streetlights, stooping over like sentinels. Watching over the little dramas unfolding, silent and final. The story tapers off into a promise of a continuation after the film, and all oblige. All magnetised. The engine cuts and Ryan and Graham move to leave the vehicle. The Doctor reaches to unbuckle her seatbelt.

Yaz swallows. ‘Doctor.’

The Doctor has frozen, a little jolt that died as quickly as it was born.

Yaz can’t look away. Heart pumps, desperate to reach across the car and entwine itself there, stay there among its counterparts, for a thousand years more.

‘You have to let go of my hand first,’ she says, ‘before you can get out.’ She tries to keep her tone light but it’s thin, too transparent.

‘Ah.’ And that’s all the Doctor says, still regarding it. Ryan and Graham are waiting for them now. ‘Yeah. I… I guess so.’ She pauses again, a breath destined for words but never fulfilled. The streetlights outside shine down on them. ‘I suppose I do.’

‘Yeah,’ Yaz nods.

She doesn’t want her to.

The Doctor presses the button on her seatbelt, and it detaches with a sharp click. 

‘Shame, that,’ she finally replies, and the first edges of a smile appear. A little self-conscious, but there nonetheless.

‘Yeah,’ Yaz repeats.

Now, with their eyes on each other, the aeons of vulnerability make themselves known. ‘Is it okay for you?’

The Doctor’s hands are warm, blushed with a double pulse. Cream fingers delicate and deft so at home with her own.

Yaz squeezes their hands together, and smiles. Her worry dissipates like dew in the morning sun.

‘Definitely.’

They breathe as one. Their petal remains. Illuminated, covered in it, she feels a great content.

**Author's Note:**

> i have shit to do but fuck it i'm gay and i wanna write about h*lding h*nds


End file.
